


Not The Beginning

by ashitanoyuki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demons, Gen, becoming a hunter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1655429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashitanoyuki/pseuds/ashitanoyuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cornered by demons, Claire Novak calls upon the only angel she knows by name for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know. I don't write in first person. I don't usually write speculative character studies about minor characters. Still, this wanted to be written, and I hope you enjoy.

It’d been years since I’d seen him, but you never forget.

Mom never got better after the possession, not really. She was pale and shaky, always jumping like she’d seen a ghost, or worse. She kept cutting back her hours and ended up quitting her job, living on Dad’s life insurance and the family savings. Goodbye, old house. Goodbye, college fund.

You don’t forget, but I’d sort of moved on. I had a job. I had friends. I was looking into applying at the local community college, taking a few classes here and there. I couldn’t leave—someone had to be around to support Mom—but I could at least start to move forward.

And then they came. Demons. Demons, all that dark black smoke and pungent smell, slithering into my friends and our neighbors. It didn’t take me long to figure out. They aren’t so good at acting when you get near them long term.

I couldn’t save Mom this time. And as I crouched in a circle of salt, screaming, I could only come up with one name.

_Castiel. Castiel, please, help me!_

It was every bit the dramatic entrance you’d expect an angel to make. Doors flying open, coat flapping behind him as the room lit up with bright white light, as demons fell at the touch of his hand. Anyone else’s eyes would have been drawn to him for his sheer presence, the magnitude of power that radiated from him. But not me.

Me, I couldn’t stop staring, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see anyone but Dad. And when he turned to me, his mouth tugged sadly, the corners folding downwards. “Claire,” he said hesitantly, and for a minute I could almost imagine that Dad had come back.

But Dad’s voice didn’t sound like that. It was too rough. Too much like a stranger trying to speak with his mouth—which it was.

“Is he…” I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. “Can I talk to him? Just for a second?”

Castiel’s shoulders slumped as he shook his head. “Your father passed on years ago, Claire,” he said solemnly. Maybe I was just imagining it, but I thought I could hear some sadness in his monotone voice. Maybe I needed to hear it. “He's in Heaven now, where he belongs. He’s at peace.”

It wasn’t like I’d ever expected to see him again, but hearing that he was dead… Something in my chest felt like it was crumbling. But I couldn’t deal with it now. I would cry later. “Oh,” I said, and I meant for my voice to sound stronger than it did. Not this weak, watery quaver. I wasn’t going to cry! “Okay.” It didn’t seem like the right thing to say to the person who just saved your life. Who just told you that your father is dead. Who’s probably the one who got him killed.

But Castiel didn’t ask for anything more. He lingered briefly, looking at my salt circle, the hastily drawn safeguard that had kept me alive while I waited for rescue like a damsel in distress. I guess I had been that. “You’ve done well,” the angel said after a long moment. “Your father would be very proud of you.”

And then he was gone, with the slightest rustling of feathers, leaving me with so many burnt out husks of friends, of neighbors, of Mom. So many bodies, and nothing but a pile of salt to show for my own efforts.

There had to be more that I could do, somehow, somewhere. But I had no idea where to start. Do you just go up to a random church and tell the pastor that you want to learn how to kill demons? That just seemed crazy. If it was something everyone knew about, well, then everyone would know about it.

A brief flash of light interrupted my thoughts. When the room cleared, the bodies were gone, the floor bare save for a wrinkled sheet of paper. Maybe it was stupid of me, but I found myself picking it up, turning it over in my hands to read the loopy, elegant cursive writing.

 _An angel always retains some sort of ties to its vessels. You housed me, however briefly, all those years back. I know what you were thinking as I left, and I need to warn you, it will be dangerous. If you are truly set on learning how to handle_ _demons, here are some starting points._

Beneath the note were three hastily jotted down phone numbers, crisply labeled by name. Dean Winchester. Sam Winchester.

Castiel.

I had never really thought about what draws an angel to their vessel, and while now the thought flitted briefly through my head, I had more important things to worry about than how Castiel had known what I was thinking. Why he chose Dad, and then me, before Dad begged him to leave me be. I pulled my phone out of my pocket—screen cracked, still functional—and typed in the third number, not stopping to pause. If I waited, I was going to lose my nerve. And I couldn’t lose my nerve.

“Castiel?” I asked when the person on the other end of the line picked up. “You said you would teach me how to fight demons?”

Everyone starts somewhere. Maybe I ought to say that I started hunting after a run-in with a group of demons when I was 18 years old, getting ready to graduate high school and taking care of my mother. Ordinary life interrupted, like almost every other hunter.

But I’m pretty sure that in reality, I was set onto the hunting path years before that incident, on the first night that an angel of the Lord came to my father and asked to be let in.


End file.
